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W TO UVEA 



HUNDRED YEARS 



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BeiTi^" a He.airt 
to Heari Talk. : 



•CM* Ml 



FR/V ELBERTUS 



How To Live 
a Hundred Years 

Being a Heart-to-Heart 
Talk by Fra Elbertus 



Done into print by The Roycrofters, 
at their Shop, which is in Bast Aurora, 
Erie County, New York, U. S. A. 



<l 



/ 



.** 



Copyright ign 

By 
Elbert Hubbard 



<g) CI.A29530? 



How To Live a Hundred Years 

go . ddHIS is an advertisement for the 

Best Food of which I know & 
But before I tell you of this 
particular Food, I want to say 
something else. And that is: 
55 " 55 Nature intended that each ani- 
mal should live to an age approximating five 
times the number of years it takes to reach 
its bodily maturity. 

Man reaches his height and maximum 
strength at twenty, and should therefore 
live to be a hundred. 
The brain, being the last organ developed, 
and growing until man is past seventy, should 
sit secure and watch every organ decline. 
As it is, the brain, with over one-half of the 
individuals who live to be seventy, loses its 
power before the hands and feet, and death 
reaps something less than a man. 

The Most Natural Thing in the World 
I^EALTH is the most natural thing in the 
It world. It is natural to be healthy, because 
we are a part of Nature — we are Nature & 
Nature is trying hard to keep us well, because 

5 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS 

she needs us in her business. <i Nature needs 
man so he will be useful to other men. 
The rewards of life are for service. 
And the penalties of life are for selfishness. 
<I Human service is the highest form of self- 
interest for the person who serves. 
We preserve our sanity, only as we forget 
self in service. 

To center on one's self, and forget our rela- 
tionship to society, is to summon misery, and 
misery means disease. 

Just a few plain rules, and the whole matter 
of life is automatic and self -lubricating. *£ 
Health is a habit. In the race of life man 
with educated bowels will eclipse the party 
with an educated brain — but why not have 
both? 

A Natural Food 
Cp* HERE is one food now on the market 
Up which a great number of people with 
delicate digestions are using with great advan- 
tage and benefit, and that is Mapl-Flake & 
I have used this delightful preparation with 
great satisfaction; have recommended it to 
a great many others; and in all cases it has 
6 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEAR 

been a satisfaction and a benefit, and in a 
few instances has worked a positive change 
for good that has been most gratifying. 
Mapl-Flake is made from whole wheat. 
In white flour it is well known that the outer 
husk of the wheat, or the brown portion, is 
removed. This is exactly as it should not be. 
The bran is just as necessary as the inner 
portion of the wheat. The bran has a direct 
office to perform in stimulating the nerves, 
stomach and entire digestive tract. Any one 
who is suffering from the effects of sedentary 
habits should give this delightful food a trial, 
and note the relief and the health betterment 
that follows its use. 

Mapl-Flake is not in any sense a drug or a 
medicine. It is simply a valuable food-product 
made from wheat flavored with maple and 
cane sugar. Some eat it without cream or the 
addition of any sugar or sweets ; others prefer 
it with cream or fruit-juices. 
But eat it as you like it — once a day or three 
times a day as appetite calls. 
I am glad when I see any one getting the 
Mapl-Flake Habit, for I know that it means 

7 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS 

better thoughts, more work, and a general 
resiliency in the entire system. 

Tired Nature's Sweet Restorer 
^jlEOPLE with impaired digestion do not 
™ sleep well at night & In fact, they are 
slightly poisoned with fermented food. 
Action is the one law of Nature. Everything 
is in motion. And digestion goes on during 
our sleep just as much as when we are awake. 
<i Drugs and chemicals that work while you 
sleep are a little later going to prevent your 
working when awake. 

What we want is to be very much awake in 
the daytime and very much asleep at night. 
f And these things are only possible to people 
who eat the right food, think good thoughts, 
and observe the every-day, common laws of 
health J» & 

Any one with the Mapl-Flake Habit need 
never fear appendicitis, ptomaines, rheuma- 
tism, sciatica, and all of these beautiful 
diseases with which the doctors have supplied 

However, I think it a mistake to blame the 
medical fraternity for all of our ills and dis- 
8 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS 

abilities. The fact is, doctors minister to the 
prejudices of the times, because they are a 
part of the times. Doctors are men, just like 
the rest of us, neither better nor worse, and 
as we grow better, we have better doctors, 
f It is a delight now to find many physicians 
who not only recommend Mapl-Flake as 
a food to their patients, but who use it on 
their own tables. 

The Value of Whole Wheat 

Bfiff HEAT is tne great natural food of the 

VW race ; but it must be whole wheat, and 

not wheat that has lost the outside husk or 

bran portion. 

The bran in Mapl-Flake acts as a gentle 
irritant, and thus stimulates the natural peri- 
staltic action of the bowels. The whole wheat, 
steamed and cooked in a certain way and 
flavored with maple-sugar, brings about the 
desired qualities in the food which make it 
delightfully palatable and also digestible. 
Foods made from Indian corn are more or 
less heating, and the tendency is toward 
congestion and fever, which result in torpidity 
and inaction. This is especially true, I believe, 

9 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS 

of all the corn flakes made, the reason this is 
so being apparently that all the oil is extracted 
from the corn : also, all the hull is removed 
and the starchy portion only of the kernel is 
used in making corn flakes. 
The bran in the wheat, however, produces 
exactly the opposite effect to that just noted, 
being a cooling, healthful and gentle stimulant. 
<I Mapl-Flake is sold by all the best grocers. 
If there is something just as good I have never 
discovered it. 

So great, in fact, has become the vogue of 
Mapl-Flake, and as an evidence of the trend 
of the times, that I will just mention that in 
thousands of hotels, restaurants and dining- 
cars, Mapl-Flake is regularly served in indi- 
vidual packages. Here, at The Roycroft Inn, 
Mapl-Flake is a standard article of diet. 

Dietetic Sinners 
HfHE Mapl-Flake Habit avoids malnutri- 
w'tion. Bad breath, flatulence, drowsiness 
in the daytime, wakefulness at night, all 
mean food-poisoning. Resort to drugs for 
relief, continue to gulp, guzzle and bolt, 
turning to the doctor now and then in time 
10 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS 

of trouble, and the water-supply gets infected 
by the sewage, and the doctors call it Nervous 
Prostration, Bright's Disease, Inflammatory 
Rheumatism or Neuritis, and the undertaker 
begins to take a personal interest in you & 
Very, very few deaths are natural. Men die 
because a part gives out, and, unlike an Oliver 
Plow or a McCormick Reaper, you can't 
replace the part. The next best thing, when 
you have a hot box or get short-circuited, is 
to scud for the surgeon ; and he cuts into you, 
removes the offender, and you go on through 
life with one cylinder, somewhat proud of it, 
mentioning the fact to neighbors and marvel- 
ing that you can run at all with one kidney and 
no appendix. 

Please bear in mind that the greatest dietetic 
sinners are not the poor and ignorant, but the 
so-called educated class. We all realize the 
dangers from strong drink, but strong meat 
that sets up its ferment after you eat it is quite 
as bad as the product of the grain that is 
fermented first and swallowed afterwards J> 



n 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEAR! 

The Evils of Malnutrition 

®HE craving for stimulants is a disease, 
and never goes with Dietetic Righteous- 
ness. Crime follows malnutrition, as does 
night the day. Irritability, stupidity, touchiness 
are some of the results of food-poisoning. The 
criminal is a sick man. Q Twenty-five years 
ago Doctor Charcot of Paris said, "Ninety- 
five per cent of all diseases have their origin 
in the digestive tract." 

The one prevailing complaint among civilized 
people is malnutrition — indigestion and inac- 
tivity of the bowels. This causes excuse for 
the vast purchase of pills and medicines to 
relieve a condition which should never occur. 
<I There is a way to regulate the bowels by 
eating the right food. 

Most of the so-called " heart diseases " are 
stomach troubles. The stomach, being located 
just beneath the heart, fermentation causes 
pressure on the heart, and this starts palpi- 
tation and irregularity of heart-beat; and 
probably in time may set up a genuine heart- 
disease <£> t£ 

All diseases of the liver have their rise in 
12 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS 

imperfect digestion. Overtaxed kidneys, with 
Diabetes and Bright's Disease, follow like 
causes. Catarrh, hay-fever, colds, typhoid, 
yellow fever and smallpox may originate 
from imperfect elimination. 
Disease catches those who lack resisting 
power, or resiliency. Keep your bodily health 
up to a high average and you are proof against 
any malevolent germs that may come along. 
<I Health means that the friendly germs are 
fighting for you, and disease means that the 
germs of dissolution and death are in the 
majority. 9 As a student of the so-called 
" science of medicine," I would say that the 
first requisite to health is that one confine 
himself to foods that agree with him, and 
that bring about natural elimination without 
the use of drugs and chemicals. 
There are thousands of people using corn- 
flaked foods who are not conscious that they 
have every constipating tendency. 
The Bane of Drugs 

tHERE is one thing the world has not 
'known until very recent times, and that 
is that every drug has not only a direct effect 

13 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS 

but a reactionary effect. Action and reaction 
are equal. 

The use of drugs which bring about quick 
action of the bowels is always followed by 
periods of inaction and torpor. Then after 
a time the individual has to take more medi- 
cine. He is educating his bowels, and he is 
wrongly educating them, and in course of 
time he becomes a victim of the drug habit — 
which is just as bad as to be a victim of the 
drink habit. And in fact it is very much like it, 
save that its symptoms are somewhat veiled, 
but it is just as deadly in its career. 
Doctor J. H. Tilden, of Denver, one of the 
great moderns, says that in all of his career 
he has never known a case of appendicitis 
except with individuals who were addicted 
to the drug habit & Appendicitis follows 
torpidity, and is the natural result of impac- 
tion, starting inflammation in a small but 
very useful organ. The vermiform appendix 
becomes fevered, then inflamed, and fashion- 
able surgery, not being able to cure the com- 
plaint, simply cuts the organ out, with the 
result that the person is never again capable 
14 



HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS 

of happy, generous, exuberant health — the 
health we would all enjoy if we lived properly. 
<I Every individual should discover for him- 
self the foods that agree with him and stick 
to them. He will also probably discover the 
foods that disagree with him, and these he 
should absolutely forego. 
Get the Mapl-Flake Habit! 



15 



21 »* M 



HERE THEN ENDETH THE BOOKLET, ENTITLED, 
"HOW TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS," AS WRITTEN 
BY ELBERT HUBBARD, AND DONE INTO PRINT BY 
THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS 
IN EAST AURORA. ERIE COUNTY, NEW STORK 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



AUG 2f 1911 



An Ameri- 
can Religion: 
Work, play, 
breathe, live, 
bathe, study, 
laugh & love 



LS RY 0F CONGRESS 




^014 359 839 1 




eatom te 
largely a 
matter of 
bisection 



